That stopped me in my tracks-earning me two painful pokes in the kidneys, but I hardly noticed. I've never been much for typical corp architecture. Too many corps seem to get into the old macho "I've got me biggest architect" kind of drek, forgetting mat people actually have to live and work in their monuments to too much cred and too little taste. Not TIC-at least, not here.
The place was bright and airy, the atrium open to the azure blue sky above. Open-sided corridors looked down onto the atrium from all three stories of the building. People were doing about their corp business along those corridors. As I watched, one slag on the second floor reached over the railing and plucked a blossom from one of the flowering trees-that's right, trees-that grew in the open area. He sniffed the flower appreciatively, then stuck it into his buttonhole before moving on. Birds twittered and cheeped from the boughs above me, and the air was full of perfume.
Under one of the trees was a small conference table. Half a dozen intense-looking corp types were discussing something-discussing it quite heatedly, judging by their body language. I couldn't hear the first word of what they were saying, however; the "conference room" was obviously equipped with white-noise generators.
"All right, already," I said peevishly as my two sideboys poked me in the back, and off we went again. Over to the far comer of the atrium, and up a movator to the second floor, then up another to the third and top.
Top floor-executive suite. I could tell immediately. The pearl gray carpet on the floors was deeper-piled. The art on the walls was more understated, elegant, and obviously expensive. The people passing by in the halls were better-dressed. (Don't get me wrong: Even on the ground floor, people wore suits that would cost as much as a car. The only difference on the third floor was the model of car-Jackrabbit or Westwind.) I could almost smell the cred in the air.
Along one of those open-sided hallways we walked, then turned away from the atrium and into serious suit-land. We approached a big set of double doors mat had to be real mahogany and not wood-grained duraplast. The doors silently swung open before we reached them. The corp-biff jandered on through with me at her heels. The two muscleboys peeled off, though, and stayed outside the doors, which immediately swung shut behind me. Which implied serious security on this side of the doors, of course. Surveillance cameras at the very least, and probably spirits or elementals on a very short leash. Just as well I wasn't planning anything untoward at the moment.
On jandered my escort, past various office doors-all mahogany, all notably missing nameplates; presumably, if you didn't know where to find the office you wanted, you just plain didn't belong here. Another couple of turns, and another double door; this time floor-to-ceiling transpex with some kind of chromatic coating that made the doors look like huge opalescent soap bubbles. Again the doors swung back as we approached and again closed silently after us.
End of the line, apparently. The elf stopped in the middle of an antechamber or waiting room and gestured silently to one of the coral-hued leather couches. And then, still without saying a word, she turned on her heel and strode back out through the soap-bubble doors.
On a whim, I tried to follow. Predictably, those doors didn't open for me the way they did for her.
Okay, so I'd been bagged by pros and taken to see some high corp suit who had something he/she/it wanted me to know… presumably. (Unless TIC was a yak cover, and this was the waiting room for the torture chamber.) I remember reading once that, "Life is just one damn thing after another." Wrongo. It's the same damn thing over and over again.
I wandered back into the middle of the waiting room and took a good, hard look around. The soap-bubble doors took up much of one wall. In the center of the opposite wall was a single wooden door. (Not mahogany; something even richer-looking, with an even stronger grain pattern. A native Hawai'ian species, maybe?) Again, there was no nameplate on the door. But it didn't need one, I can recognize the office door of the head muckamuck without any outside cues.
Along the other two walls were couches, a delicate coral in color, perfectly coordinated with the pastel carpets and wall-coverings. On the walls were three large paintings.
Yes, I mean paintings. Flat things with no 3-D to them. Paint manually applied to some kind of backing material. Rare, these days, and generally very expensive because of it. Out of curiosity-and because I didn't have much else to do at the moment-I strolled up to the nearest one and gave it the scan.
Strange drek, chummer. It was an undersea scene, complete with coral and brilliantly colored reef fish and happy, smiling dolphins. (Dolphins! I guess that was some indication of the painting's age. Dolphins went out quite a while back when they couldn't adapt to the concentration of toxics we were tossing into their oceans. And you can bet they weren't smiling for quite some time before the end.) So far so good, I guess. Then it started getting weird. There were Grecian-style columns, temples, and other crap-even pyramids, honest to Ghu!-on the bottom of the ocean, and the happy, smiling dolphins were swimming in and out among them. Hmm.
I moved on to the next painting. Much the same thing: same reefs, same ruins, same happy, smiling dolphins. Except this time there was some kind of glow emanating from inside the ruined buildings. And maybe the dolphins looked just a tad happier, I don't know.
Third painting, exactly the same, but more so. And this time, over the glowing door of one of the pyramids, there was some strange symbol carved into the rock. The Eye of Horus crossed with the biohazard trefoil, that's what it looked like, but I know squat about art, so I might have been wrong. Weird drek. Atlantis?
I bent closer for a look at the signature: an incomprehensible scrawl that might have been "Andrew Annen-something", or maybe not. The date was 1996.
"What do you think, Mr. Montgomery?"
The husky contralto voice sounded from close behind me. I tried to keep tight rein on my sphincters, and struggled to keep my movements smooth and urbane as I turned around.
The dark-grained wood door had opened silently, and, just as silently, an elf had emerged. Tall and slender she was, with fine blond hair curled into a coif that seemed to defy gravity. Her eyes were pale-faint blue, maybe, or gray. She was dressed in a broad-shouldered, tab-collared corp skirtsuit that could have been made of liquid gold. On one epaulet was the designer's marque-the stylized Z of Zoe. On the other was the Telestrian Industries Corporation logotype.
The elf smiled at me, and extended her hand. On reflex I took it. Her grip was firm, her skin cool and silk-smooth. "Again I feel like I'm at a disadvantage," I told her as calmly as I could manage. "You know my name…"
She smiled. "I meant no disrespect, Mr. Montgomery." Under the right circumstances that voice could curl my toes. At the moment, though, I wasn't in me mood. "My name is Chantal Monot." She gave the name a strong French inflection.
I racked my brain for any details I could recall about TIC. "James Telestrian's… daughter-in-law?" I guessed, naming the CEO of the overall TIC empire.
The elf's smile broadened. "Nepotism isn't that bad in the company," she chided me lightly. "Not every executive is related to James. Many, but not all."
I yielded the point with a nod. "And your position is, Ms. Monot…?'
"President and chief executive officer of Telestrian Industries Corporation, South Pacific Operations."
I blinked. Ookaay… It always pays to know what level you're working at. (In this case, me highest.)
Monot inclined her head toward the painting and repeated, "What do you think, Mr. Montgomery?" She chuckled. "And please don't tell me you 'know nothing about art but know what you like.'"